AFFiNE

Local-first Notion and Miro in oneOpen source

AFFiNE puts docs, whiteboards and databases in one workspace, where a page reads top to bottom or spreads across an infinite canvas. It's local-first: unlimited local workspaces, no account needed, with the official cloud or a self-hosted server added for sync and collaboration. The maker is TOEVERYTHING PTE. LTD. The editor is MIT; the backend splits into an MPL-2.0 community edition and a subscription-based enterprise edition. In May 2026 founder JiaChen He stepped away, Vincent Chen became CEO, and a move to Apache 2.0 was announced; as of 2026-10-25 it hasn't happened.

EditorialUpdated Oct 25, 20269 min read

The AFFiNE interface

What it does

AFFiNE gives a single piece of content two views. Page mode reads like a normal document. Switch to Edgeless mode and it becomes an infinite canvas where rich text, sticky notes, embedded web pages, multi-view databases, linked pages, shapes and even slides all sit as blocks. The README lists its influences: Quip and Notion for everything-is-a-block, Trello for kanban, Airtable and Miro for no-code tables, Miro and Whimsical for whiteboards, and Capacities for object-style tags.

Data is stored on the local device by default, and an account is optional. Sign in to the official cloud for real-time sync and collaboration across web and native apps, or run the server yourself. The download page lists Windows 10+ (x64 and ARM64), macOS 11+ (Apple Silicon and Intel), Linux (AppImage, deb and Flatpak), iOS and Android, plus a web app.

The copyright holder in the root LICENSE is TOEVERYTHING PTE. LTD. and its affiliates. The toeverything GitHub org was created on February 8, 2021; the AFFiNE repo dates from July 31, 2022. China Growth Capital's February 14, 2023 announcement describes founder JiaChen He as a graduate of the University of Glasgow and HKUST who worked as a researcher with teams including LIGO, and says the core engineers include a TC39 member, a Node.js member and collaborative-editing developers from Feishu, Kuaishou, Microsoft and others. An October 2023 press release names Yipei Wei as COO and co-founder. On May 13, 2026 the company blog announced that He was leaving AFFiNE to build Bridge, a product for AI-agent workflows. Vincent Chen, an early team member who signs the post as CEO, now leads AFFiNE, and the post says the two products will develop separately.

On funding, China Growth Capital said in February 2023 that AFFiNE had closed an eight-figure Pre-A round in US dollars (the announcement gives no exact amount), co-led by China Growth Capital, Redpoint China and Sinovation Ventures, with existing investor MiraclePlus following on. A PR Newswire release on October 16, 2023 tells it differently: an $8 million Pre-A, $10 million raised across three rounds, and a "total value" of nearly $40 million, in the release's own words; it doesn't say whether that means a valuation. Both come from the company or its investors.

As of 2026-10-25 the repo has 73,801 stars and 5,383 forks. About 261 contributors have GitHub accounts (GitHub API, 2026-10-25), and the GitHub API's open_issues_count (open issues and PRs combined) is 790. The default branch is canary, last pushed early on 2026-10-25. The latest stable release is v0.27.4 (2026-08-19). The previous feature release, v0.27.0 on 2026-07-15, added experimental AI bring-your-own-key (BYOK), a calendar view for databases, and importers for OneNote, Obsidian, Bear and Notion.

A privacy-focused, local-first, open-source, and ready-to-use alternative for Notion & Miro.
AFFiNE README

Key features

Docs and whiteboard in one. Any content flips between Page and Edgeless modes, and any block can go on the canvas. Version 0.27 sped up Edgeless rendering, cut its memory use, made touch input more responsive, and fixed rendering and interaction bugs in code blocks, LaTeX, Mermaid and Typst.

Database blocks. Multi-view databases embed inside documents; 0.27 added a calendar view and fixed sorting and shortcut bugs in table cells. On the server side, 0.27 improved the CalDAV sync queue and compatibility.

Local-first, with optional collaboration. Local workspaces are unlimited. Connecting to the cloud adds real-time sync, multiplayer editing and Cloud Time Machine version history: 7 days on Free, 30 on Pro.

AI. The official AI is a paid add-on. The README's examples include drafting work reports, turning outlines into slides, condensing articles into mind maps and generating web prototypes from a prompt. Experimental BYOK arrived in 0.27, and 0.27.4 added GPT 5.6 and Gemini 3.7. On self-hosted instances, BYOK is switched on in config/config.json, but the keys go in the workspace's Settings → Integrations → AI BYOK. Custom endpoints need an admin to allow them, and transcription and workspace indexing need a Gemini BYOK key saved in the workspace with server storage, or an AFFiNE AI plan fallback where available; workspace indexing also needs the indexer enabled in the deployment. The docs say not to put provider API keys in the server configuration.

Importers, templates and platforms. Import from Notion, Obsidian, Bear and OneNote, or start from official templates such as vision boards, Cornell notes and reading logs. Clients cover the three desktop systems and both mobile platforms, and since 0.27.4 the Mac app can hide its tray icon once the window is closed.

How it compares

AppFlowy also bills itself as an open source Notion alternative. It's AGPL-3.0 with 77,721 stars as of 2026-10-25. The AGPL obliges anyone running it as a network service to publish their changes, whereas part of AFFiNE's backend needs an enterprise subscription. AFFiNE switches docs and a whiteboard on the same canvas.

Obsidian stores notes as local Markdown files. The app is free for personal, commercial and non-profit use; Sync costs $4 a month billed annually or $5 monthly, and Publish $8 or $10. AFFiNE has built-in databases, a whiteboard and real-time multiplayer.

Logseq is an outliner built around bidirectional links, AGPL-3.0 with 45,362 stars as of 2026-10-25. Logseq centers on outlines, journaling and block references; AFFiNE also has whiteboards and databases.

SiYuan is another local-first, block-based notes app, AGPL-3.0 with 46,919 stars as of 2026-10-25.

Notion and Miro are what the README says AFFiNE replaces.

Who uses it, and who it's for

On user numbers, the pricing page claims 200K+ Pro users, and the May 2026 blog post cited 68.3k GitHub stars and more than 7 million downloads at the time. Both figures are vendor-reported. The US App Store shows, as of 2026-10-31, 36 ratings averaging 4.28, with TOEVERYTHING PTE. LTD. as the seller and version 0.27.1 live.

Who it's for

Individuals who want notes, whiteboards and tables together without handing all their data to a cloud service. Local workspaces are unlimited and need no account.

Small teams of up to ten hosting their own knowledge base. The docs say every workspace on a self-hosted instance automatically gets up to 10 seats, at no cost.

People leaving Notion, Obsidian, Bear or OneNote. Since 0.27 the client ships importers for all four.

People running AI on their own API budget. Experimental BYOK since 0.27 accepts keys from OpenAI, Anthropic, Gemini and FAL.

Not for

Anyone who depends on plugins. The README still lists a plugin community and third-party blocks as coming soon.

People who work directly in folders of Markdown files. Content is stored in AFFiNE's own format today; reading and writing Markdown files directly is a plan from the May 2026 blog post.

Teams over ten people self-hosting on an intranet without paying. More than 10 seats needs a Team subscription, and servers that can't reach AFFiNE's license check also need an Installable License.

Getting started

Individual use. Clients are on the download page, and there is a web app. Local workspaces work without signing in; cross-device sync requires signing in: the cloud Free plan gives 10 GB of storage, a 10 MB file limit, up to 3 members per workspace and up to 3 devices.

Bringing old notes. Since 0.27 the client imports from Notion, Obsidian, Bear and OneNote.

Self-hosting. Docker Compose is the recommended route. The compose file comes from curl -L -o docker-compose.yml https://github.com/toeverything/AFFiNE/releases/latest/download/docker-compose.yml and the sample config with curl -L -o config/config.json https://github.com/toeverything/AFFiNE/releases/latest/download/config.json.example, followed by docker compose up -d. It comes up at http://localhost:3010 by default. The stated requirements are about 1.5 GB of disk, 4+ CPU cores and 2 GB of RAM, or 4 GB if documents run past 10,000 words. Merging a document with 10,000 edits peaks at around 1 GB of memory. Postgres is the only supported database, and the AI features also need the pgvector extension. Redis must be 6.x or 7.x. For capacity, the docs give about 100 MB of Postgres per 1,000 documents and about 10 GB of storage per 1,000 attachments.

Upgrades and backups. From 0.27, clients only connect to servers on 0.27 or later, and servers only accept clients on 0.26 or later. The server also now prefers config.json over environment variables, so the config has to be migrated before upgrading. Backups use pg_dump --format=custom inside the Postgres container plus a copy of the storage directory. The docs warn that restoring only the database won't bring back uploaded files.

Pricing & license

Prices as of 2026-10-25. Local use is free, and the cloud Free plan costs $0. Pro is $6.75 a month billed annually, with 100 GB of storage, a 100 MB file limit, 10 members per workspace and 30 days of history; the pricing page notes that annual billing saves 15%. Team is $10 per seat per month, billed annually: 100 GB to start plus 20 GB per seat, a 500 MB file limit, multiple admin roles and priority support. Believer is a one-time $499.99 for lifetime personal Pro plus 1 TB of storage. The AI add-on is $8.9 a month billed annually. Enterprise and the commercial source-code license (Code License) are quoted on request. On self-hosted instances, each workspace gets up to 10 seats free. More seats require a Team subscription, which checks the license online, or an Installable License for intranet deployments.

The licensing comes in three layers. The root LICENSE puts everything outside packages/backend and packages/common/native under MIT. Those two directories fall under the Enterprise Edition (EE) license, which requires a valid subscription with the right seat count for production use but allows free development and testing. The Community Edition (CE) parts, and anything served to the client, are MPL-2.0. GitHub reports the repo's license as NOASSERTION. Contributors must sign a CLA before their pull requests can be merged. The BlockSuite editor also has its own repo, toeverything/blocksuite, under MPL-2.0, while the blocksuite directory inside the main repo falls under the root LICENSE's MIT terms; the two licenses cover two different copies of the code.

Risks & limits

First, the license plans. The May 2026 blog post plans to split enterprise permissions and admin controls out of the core, open up third-party storage and backend options, and move the repo from open core to Apache 2.0 throughout. But as of 2026-10-25 the root LICENSE was last changed on 2025-12-29.

Second, the leadership change. The founder has moved on to Bridge and Vincent Chen now runs AFFiNE. The company says the core product direction stays the same.

Third, self-hosting has limits. Workspaces get 10 free seats. The docs say unlimited attachment storage and file sizes are coming for self-hosted instances, but that's still a plan. Clients and servers on 0.27 are version-locked, so upgrade both together. BYOK is still experimental, and the 0.27.4 release notes warn it may need reconfiguring after an upgrade.

Fourth, most user figures come from the vendor. The 200K+ Pro users and 7 million downloads figures appear only on official pages, and as of 2026-10-31 the US App Store shows 36 ratings.

Our verdict

What sets AFFiNE apart: it runs locally and can be self-hosted, and the same content switches between document and whiteboard modes; local use is free, and each self-hosted workspace gets up to 10 free seats. Its limits: packages/backend and packages/common/native fall under the enterprise license, and production use needs a valid subscription; the move to Apache 2.0 announced in May 2026 had not happened as of 2026-10-25; the README still lists a plugin community and third-party blocks as coming soon; and content is stored in AFFiNE's own format.

Why it stands out

AFFiNE combines a document editor and an infinite canvas in one local-first application. Notes, databases, and whiteboards share the same data model, so a paragraph can become a card on a canvas without leaving the app.

Since May 2026 the company has been led by CEO Vincent Chen. The team built the collaborative core, BlockSuite, on top of Yjs and open sourced it as a standalone framework. The result is one of the more technically ambitious open source products in the category.

Notes, databases and whiteboards share one data model, and the collaborative core, BlockSuite, is open sourced as a standalone framework.